STOCKS NEWS SINGAPORE-MDR gains on Myanmar deal

Shares in mobile phone distributor MDR Ltd rose as much as 6.3 percent after Nokia made MDR’s business partner Golden Myanmar Sea Company Ltd a distributor of its products in Myanmar.

MDR was one of the most actively traded stocks on the Singapore bourse, with 164.5 million shares changing hands, and rose to an intra-day high of S$0.017, matching a peak in May.

MDR Myanmar will provide consultancy and retail franchisee procurement services to Golden Myanmar Sea, which will help MDR make a foray into the emerging telecommunication business in the country which has opened up after decades of isolation.

Myanmar is expected to award two mobile licences later this month to open up one of the largest untapped mobile markets.

(Reporting by Rujun Shen; Editing by Sunil Nair)

***************************************************************

11:24 STOCKS NEWS SINGAPORE-Index down; Keppel gains on rig order

Singapore shares weakened, while the world’s biggest offshore oil rig builder Keppel Corporation Ltd gained on news that it won an $800 million rig order from Azerbaijan.

Shares of Keppel Corp rose as much as 1 percent to S$10.68, after the company announced that it won a contract from Caspian Drilling Company Ltd, a subsidiary of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic, to build a semisubmersible drilling rig, worth about $800 million.

“This contract will lift Keppel’s year-to-date wins to S$2.4 billion, forming 41 percent of our full year assumption of S$6 billion,” said DBS Group Research, keeping an unchanged “buy” rating and target price of S$13.00.

Other brokerages had a bullish outlook on Keppel Corp.

“With Keppel’s seven jack-up orders to date, all based on its KFELS B class jackup designs, we believe the outlook for margins in 2014 continues to improve,” said Barclays analysts, keeping Keppel as its top pick in the rig-building space.